How to Setup SubID Tracking URLs
- 25 Comments
- By Zac Johnson on June 23rd, 2008
I frequently get emails from new affiliates asking how to setup tracking urls for different advertising campaigns. The easiest way to do this, without any outside scripts or software, is to run through the network directly. Many networks are running off the DirectTrack network platform, including MarketLeverage, Copeac, CPAEmpire, Rextopia and Ads4Dough to name a few. Through this walk through for setting up SubID tracking, I will use MarketLeverage as an example, but the same process applies to all previous affiliate networks listed.
- Step 1: Login to MarketLeverage and Select an Offer
No matter what offers you select on MarketLeverage or any of the other DirectTrack powered networks, you can setup an unlimited amount of SubID tracking urls.
- Step 2: Setup SubID Tracking URLs
Once you have selected your offer, you should be looking at the page with all of the creatives and banners. Find the email or banner creative that you want to use, then click on the [Add] link in that creative field.
After clicking [Add], five new text forms will open for you to place your subid tags in there. These can be any type of terms you want to use. For my example I threw in a couple tags which would be recognized for search marketing through Google, Yahoo and MSN. You can use whatever text or terms you like.
Once you place your subid terms, click “Update Click Code“, you will be given a new tracking url like the following:
http://payoutdeal.com/a.php?a=CD###&b=19468&d=0&l=
0&o=&p=0&c=3771&s1=searchgoogle1&s2=&s3=&s4=&s5=
The area in RED is your subid tag that you just created to track campaign performance.
- Step 3: SubID Tracking & Stats
Now that you have your subid tracking urls setup and running, you will want to check their individual stats. To do this, all you need to do is go to your stats page as you usually do, but this time instead of clicking “Display Stats“, you should click the “Get SubID Stats” link on the bottom section. You will then be sent to the reports page for performance on your subid tracking urls.
- Additional Campaign Tracking Options
In addition to the SubID tracking setup above, you also have the option to simply setup a “Name Creative for Deployment“, which is how I usually setup campaigns. To do this, you follow the same process as step 1 above, to find your offer. Skip step 2 above with the [Add] and just look for the form (shown below) at the bottom of each creative. Just place your creative name tag in the form and click “Deploy Creative”. The next page will provide you with your new tracking url. For stats tracking, follow the same process shown above in step 3, but instead of clicking “Get SubID Stats”, you should click “Get Stats for Deployed Creative”.
This SubID tracking process will work with any of the following networks: MarketLeverage, Copeac, CPAEmpire, Rextopia and Ads4Dough. I will follow up to this post with more ways on how to setup tracking ids through other networks, setting up your own tracking scripts, or using another outside service. Feel free to comment with any recommend scripts or services you have used.
- Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Make Money, Marketing, Pay Per Click, Web Developement
"With great power comes great responsibility".... my Uncle Ben told me that. Haha, just kidding! I'm Zac Johnson and I've been making money online for over 10 years now. In short, I started making money online while I was in high school... but my passion for marketing and making money goes back way earlier than that. I created ZacJohnson.com to help motivate you to start making money online, and live the life the you always dreamed of.
Zac,
Thanks for the excellent informative post! I will direct affiliates to read your post when they ask about sub ID’s from now on!
Reply~Debby
upto 5 subid’s? so they arent created on the fly? what if im doing dynamic sub id tracking?
ReplyMatthew, I’m not sure what you’re asking. The SUBID can change to whatever you want but you need to specify it.
ReplyIf you aren’t using either Google Conversion Tracking or your own in house (cookie based) tracking - you will fail.
ReplyWhy do you say that? Isn’t Google Conversion tracking Javascript based? How would you put it on the target’s conversion page?
ReplyGood idea..and excellent point..will follow thru
ReplyThis is a great post. The only bummer right now with their sub id reporting in DT is that when you download the CSV, you cannot view your breakdown by each and every date (if running a month range for example). This would be very useful for them to do, I hope they do it soon.
ReplyAsk the affiliate network to place the javascript or pixel, if they won’t place it on the advertisers page (or dynamically inserting through their own pixel) walk away. If they don’t place pixels, I don’t work with them. It’s not worth your time, YOU NEED TRACKING.
ReplyGoogle tracking is easy and most networks can place it on the conversion page within 24 hours. I would have covered that in this post, but it wasn’t the topic.
ReplyIs this post serious? Its offensive that you think the people who read your blog are so freakin stupid they cant figure out how to set up a sub id.
Why don’t you do your next post on HOW to sign up for an affiliate network (be sure to throw in tons of referral links). I’m not sure if any of us know how to do that yet,
B-Man
Replyyeah no kidding
Replysorry, it does seem you can have more than 5 subids.
What I mean is do I have to login to MarketLeverage to make a subid or can I just do it dynamicly? What if im using my own tracking system and I want to pass an ID that matches in my backend tracking.
I want to be able to just send to the url with the tracking ID &subid=1234455
but I dont want to have to login to MarketLeverage to create it. It should be created on the fly when I send traffic through that subid.
ReplyI wrote in the beginning that this was a post for the newbies. As always, thanks for reading!
ReplyYOUR a newbie….PUNK
ReplyThanks for putting this type of information out there. I am VERY new at this and I am learning as much as I can. Much of the stuff you write is over my head, but I am learning and I am very glad there are people like you out there willing to share what you know.
Thanks
ReplyI understand now Matthew. No you do not need to login to create the SUBID. You do need to log in to get the tracking link though.
There are 5 subids you can track at the same time! s1 through s5. These are good if you don’t want to have to break up your subids later. For example s1 could contain the website you are coming from. s2 could contain the keyword. s3 could contain a datestamp… or whichever.
I dynamically fill s1 with all my info. Perhaps I will post to how I do that.
ReplyI definitely do tracking but I parse out the SUBID info later, dump it into a SQL database and work my magic. Can you insert javascript in a pixel? I tried this with Azoogle before and it didn’t work.
ReplyB-MAN:
It’s “you’re” not “your” you dum dum. If you insist on being nasty and flaming someone, you could at least get the grammar right.
ReplyI’m glad the grammar police are in the house. Now go back to reading YOU’RE ebooks.
ReplyNice post Zac! AM has so many things to take in count…Sometimes I feel overloaded
ReplySorry for the really novice question, but can someone explain the benefit of a sub-id? I just don’t quite get the concept.
Also If I want to track the url on Yahoo, Google, and MS, would I have to create 3 unique tracking urls for each ad network? It’s still unclear to me how I could track ad networks individually if I use all 5 sub-id variables at once.
ReplyIs there a term or generic variable you can use to insert into the sub id field that will track any url it comes from? For example, if you submit your affililate link to a PPC program, you never know where they placed the PPC ad so you can insert a definate url as the sub id. Therefore is there a code like %address% or or something to track any url that it comes from?
ReplyZac,
I know you think you’re awesome b/c you parse your HTTP REFERER and highlight search terms on the page, but it’s fucking retarded. It makes the page absolutely unreadable. You’re a moron.
ReplyGreat Insight on Sub ID’s!! Its nice to know that people like u share ur knowledge for us.
I would like to how to track dynamically generated SUB ID.. the above ex. u’ve shown is about fixed values for SUB ID’s but i want to be able to track dynamically generated values from our website. We use them to track leads and clicks by the user. Since we are a cashback site… we are looking out for a affiliate software that will help us be able to track this kind..
Do you know any affiliate software that helps us do so.. we are looking out to purchase a software that will do similar tracking like CJ-affiliate..
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